I can't believe it... xedit ruined my C project...

diam0nd · 08-27-2004, 12:42 PM

I had to finish my academic project in C language until 31/8, and just now, xedit ruined it!!!
I don't know what to do... I think it is xedit, because only when I write files with xedit it ruines them.
now, one of my important source files looks like that:

file1.c^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@ustar^@^@^@^@username
<content of file1.c>
^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@
file2.c^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@ustar^@^@^@^@^@username^@^@^@^@^@
<contentof file2.c>
^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@ustar^@^@^@^@^@username^@^@^@

and so on.......... where "username" is my username....
it does that for all fileX.c except my ruined file.... I just don't know what to do... and the file.c~ files are gone...
any idea what to do????
thanks alot alot for any advice...

SirSlappy · 08-27-2004, 12:50 PM

Was the file stored on a NTFS partition?

SheldonPlankton · 08-27-2004, 01:10 PM

Are you sure you didn't make this mistake ...

Code:

$ cat oops.c
#include <stdio.h>
 
main() {
        printf ( "hello world ...\n" );
}
$ gcc -o oops.c oops.c
$ vim oops.c
^?ELF^A^A^A^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^B^@^C^@^A^@^@^@x<82>^D^H4^@^@^@<^]^@^@^@^@^@^@4^@
^@^F^@(^@"^@^_^@^F^@^@^@4^@^@^@4<80>

I know I have ... that's why I use stuff like SCCS or CVS!

darkleaf · 08-27-2004, 02:52 PM

I don't know much about this, you could try another editor.

But on a general note I hope you were smart enough to have recent backups made. For anything important you code you should do that like daily or everytime you worked on it.

diam0nd · 08-27-2004, 09:03 PM

SirSlappy: no it wasn't, it was on a ReiserFS partition.

SheldonPlankton: no I didn't do that, it was compiled by a makefile.

darkleaf: from now on, be sure I won't be using xedit anymore.
I didn't had backup files becuase my partner on the project wrote to delete them in the "make clean" section in the makefile.

Well I'm in trouble now. dunno what ill do...

Not now, John! · 08-28-2004, 04:08 AM

Very odd problem...
Try opening those files with different charsets in some editor like Kate.

diam0nd · 08-28-2004, 05:24 AM

Not now, John! : that didn't help too

any idea where is the best place I can post help for this? some mailing list / discussion group or something?

kev82 · 08-28-2004, 05:31 AM

what filetype does file report for the corrupted file? ie if abc.c is corrupted what is the output of

file abc.c

Mega Man X · 08-28-2004, 05:31 AM

Take a look if xedit did not create some temp files at the same folder where you have your project, usually something like "project.cpp~". I know that some editors do that...

Good luck mate!

diam0nd · 08-28-2004, 06:05 AM

man, I decided to make some "investigation" and to find out what is "ustar"... it is an algorithm or something used by tar to make tarballs.... so I tried to recall on what I did related with tar...
and now I remember I accidently (sp?) did this command:
tar -cf file1.c file2.c file3.c file4.c ...........

MANNN, I am so stupid!!!!

and that's why my ruined file1.c contains all other files in the project...
I am so ashamed I blamed xedit... I should blame myself!
and now I really see that file file1.c prints:
"file1.c: POSIX tar archive"

I guess there is no way to recover the file... no *.c~ files too... this is pure stupidity what I did there... now I know that linux doesn't ruin files by itself... it is all human mistakes.

well thanks anyways guys.

Komakino · 08-28-2004, 06:15 AM

Couldn't you just untar the archive....?

diam0nd · 08-28-2004, 06:29 AM

I tried, but I didn't get file1.c... I get file2.c file3.c file4.c etc... coz the command was
"tar -cf file1.c file2.c file3.c file4.c" ...
is there any way I can recover file1.c to what it was *before* it was a tar archive?

kev82 · 08-28-2004, 06:38 AM

no, not as far as i know.

SheldonPlankton · 08-30-2004, 05:52 PM

Ha ... I knew it had to be something like that. Seriouly though if you are doing something important to you BACK IT UP! You don't have to go out there and setup a AMANDA server but you should at least consider CVS.